


assess the essence of the mess

by fueledbysquee



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Comment Fic, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 13:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1512455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fueledbysquee/pseuds/fueledbysquee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the prompt Nick/Louis - Nick cries in front of Louis</p><p>--</p><p>
  <i>The last thing Nick needs, snotty-faced and still trying to blink back tears, is an appearance by Louis Bloody Tomlinson. It's the last thing he needs most days, if he's honest, and he thinks he's getting better at the honesty thing. Work in progress, that.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	assess the essence of the mess

**Author's Note:**

> Commentfic, unbetaed, and generally a bit of rubbish make-believe because I was tired of people being jerks in real life. Originally posted as a response at the [Breakfast Show Hiatus fic meme](http://ngrim.livejournal.com/18491.html?thread=506171#t506171)
> 
> title from "[I Just Want the Girl in the Blue Dress to Keep on Dancing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qktIKYZJYs8)" even though I can't explain why it makes me think of these two.

The last thing Nick needs, snotty-faced and still trying to blink back tears, is an appearance by Louis Bloody Tomlinson. It's the last thing he needs most days, if he's honest, and he thinks he's getting better at the honesty thing. Work in progress, that.

Maybe Louis has got a radar for trouble like he has for terrible shoes and Nick's weak spots. It's completely unfair that he should even be in the building, much less in the same men's as where Nick has been hunched over the sink, splashing cool water on his blotchy skin and trying to remember how breathing works. Nick's asthma puff is jammed into the front pocket of his jeans like the world's pointiest security blanket and every time he leans over, it cuts into his hip in a way that's definitely going to bruise. He's sure he'll be ready to set it down sometime before he develops a permanent dent.

Louis has only made it halfway in the door, as if frozen in place when Nick glanced over. The look on Louis's face, momentarily slack-jawed, is so comically caught off guard that Nick snorts despite himself. Something - water, snot, who the fuck knows - goes down the wrong pipe. At least the coughing fit that follows this time is short-lived, just enough for a quick clear of his throat and then Nick's breathing again. He closes his eyes, and focuses on steadying each inhale and exhale, on the chilly edges of the sink under his palms, on the quiet swish of the door to the lav swinging shut. 

When he opens his eyes again, Louis is on the wrong side of the door, leaning against it. He's dressed like a grown-up head to toe for once, a feat that Nick hadn't managed that morning. He's got his arms crossed. It adds up to make Louis look far solider than he had the last time Nick had seen him, less waif and more statue, but his expression's wavering in a way that doesn't match his posture. 

The quiet stretches past merely uncomfortable, broken only by Nick's infrequent sniffles. Louis continues to watch Nick like Nick's a particularly large jumpy spider. It's not like they don't both know the script, but they're too close and too brightly lit to politely ignore each other, and too sober for anything else to seem like a good idea.

Even so, the words are right on the tip of Nick's tongue: _"Lost your voice, love? What a shame."_ Louis would probably shoot back that it's a good thing Nick's hiding, with a face like his. It wouldn't even be far off the truth, today; it would be nice if the only room with mirrors in wasn't also the one with the lighting that ages him ten years. 

It's agonizing, and it takes all of Nick's remaining self-restraint to not say "What?" He's not ready to hear Louis's answer for that either, and there's never any doubt he'll have one. Louis looks away when Nick clears his throat and muffles one more wet cough in his sleeve. If it's a roll of his eyes, it's a particularly subtle one.

The sigh Louis lets out is less restrained. "Alright?" 

" 'm fine," Nick says. He will be. "It's just." He pauses, and reins in his natural impulse to work through his thoughts by seeing which ones tumble out of his mouth. It isn't the time, or the place, and it certainly isn't the company for it. Louis has made it clear enough, often enough, that he's not interested in Nick's words. 

Louis is already starting to look like Nick was placed on Earth specifically to waste his oxygen, and Nick's got the feeling that no matter what he does, he's going to spend a lot of time explaining why he can't just leave well enough alone. He already owes Finchy one apology for today. It'd be nice to hold the total there.

"It's nothing," he says. He _knows_ what it is - it's just a shit day and some asthma and a particularly irrational bit of panic. 

"You don't- " Louis says, but he cuts himself off. When he starts again, it's with visible effort, and his voice is softer than Nick's ever heard it. "You don't look fine," he says. "Do you want to sit?"

Nick doesn't need to look around to remember where they are, and Louis shouldn't either, but Nick does pointedly look about the space before answering. It's hardly a VIP lounge. "What, here?"

Louis does roll his eyes then, like _not_ wanting to sit on the floor in the brightly lit corporate toilets of the BBC is the odd thing about this whole situation. "Unless you want to go back out there," Louis says, pointing a thumb back toward the offices full of mid-morning bustle.

The problem is, Nick would quite like to sit, even if he'd rather it be on his sofa at home next to Collette, or someone else who's going to tell him it's okay, that he's brilliant and that everything will look better tomorrow. Any port, though, and he'd already put too much work into convincing Fiona and Ian that he was fine to go back on it now by falling apart on them all over again. "Okay," he says.

Louis makes the first move, backing over to the stretch of wall behind the door and folding down. Once he's settled on the floor, he nods to his side, a bit of _go on, then_. Changing his mind now, that'd make Nick look a right arse, so he crosses over to where Louis is sat and crouches down before turning to lean against the wall as well. It seems like the creaking of his knees is louder than usual, but at least he manages to not groan like he's elderly. Louis doesn't mention it; maybe Nicks creaky knees are only loud inside his body, one of those things like how your voice sounds different in your own head to how it does on tape.

It doesn't take more than a few seconds for Nick to remember that he doesn't have the bum for sitting on unpadded surfaces. Louis has probably never had that problem, which was no doubt why he'd suggested it in the first place. It was a bit of a long trip around to make Nick uncomfortable, but Nick still can't figure out what his game is, so it makes as much sense as anything else. 

The music out in the hall rolls over from Ellie to Rita, and Louis is just sitting next to him as the seconds tick away, legs stretched out in front of him alongside Nick's, his hands folded neatly in his lap. He's hardly done more than brush a piece of lint off his trousers. 

It's unsettling, moreso than Louis's usual. 

Nick stretches out his toes, not meaning anything by it other than to alleviate the literal pain in his arse, but it breaks the moment. Nick can see Louis look sharply over at their feet, or more specifically where Louis's feet are about of a level with Nick's lower calves. Louis immediately folds his legs up under himself and leans forwards so that his elbows are resting on his knees. It puts them that much closer together, Louis's thigh overlapping Nick's. 

They've definitely never been so quiet for so long in a room together, and they've never been so close and so still. Nick starts to pull his legs up as well, but halts when it grinds the edge of his inhaler into his hip again, so he finally pulls it out of his pocket and tucks it between his cupped hands.

"Is that what happened?" Louis asks. "Asthma attack?"

It's been months since he and Louis last spoke, and Nick can count the number of conversations - the times when they've both been smiling and not just baring their teeth - on one hand. He can't remember ever exchanging information of any substance or value. Louis is still looking down at his lap, and Nick's view is mostly the top of Louis's head. When Nick doesn't answer, Louis turns his unfairly pretty face towards Nick's, and catches Nick looking at him. Nick's breath stalls and his heart manages a few more panicky thumps.

He nods, and then clears his throat. Louis turns away again, but his ears and the back of his neck are pinker than they were a few seconds before. "Shit day, mostly," Nick tells Louis's hair. "Minor case of the brain weasels."

It had, in fact, been a fucking terrible morning. Nick had woke up with a tickle in his throat and a pounding headache, and then it'd felt like the thermostat in the studio was stuck near twenty-five when they'd arrived. 

The whole show had been one computer failure after another, whether it was the heat or just a general curse on the day. First the texts had gone, then they'd lost half of ShowBot, and the callers had all been dead boring right up through the show reviewer, who'd given them a 4. Finchy had tried to jolly them along, near the end, and Nick hadn't taken it well.

It was probably all Nick's fault. He could definitely hear his Dad's voice in his head, asking him why he always needs to make such a ruckus. If he hadn't been in a strop to begin with, he'd never have let it go so long without realizing that he needed his inhaler.

And then, when he'd stormed out of the studio as soon as his last link was done, whatever they were doing to fix the ventilation had resulted in Nick walking through a cloud of something that took his tickle to some seriously next level coughing. He'd gone for the stairs, too frustrated to wait for the lift, and he'd been three flights down before he realized he was in trouble and had to turn back.

Nick rolls his shoulders, a bit of a shrug, a bit of still trying to shift his body around so that his arse doesn't go completely numb. Next time he's having a crisis, he'll be sure to relocate to a padded room.

"Stupid, innit?" he says, gesturing down the length of his body, "Here we are. Attack wasn't even that bad, hasn't been since I was a kid. But back then I worried less about dying alone in my flat." He takes a deep breath, half to let out a sigh and half to prove that he can. "Lot of fuss for nothing."

"My mum always says, if it's enough to scare you, it's important," Louis says. "And if it's important, someone ought to care."

It's a nice sentiment. Odd that one of those people could be Louis, but maybe he's got a lot of practice with that family of his. 

"Er." Nick says. This is absolutely the part where he should say 'thank you' but Louis looks back at him before he can get the words out. He looks at Nick for a long moment, and then nods once, firmly. 

"Right," he says. "Ready to get back to it?"

Louis pops up first, and when he extends a hand to help Nick up, he's a surprisingly solid counterweight. 

There's a very large man standing guard outside the door when they walk out. He and Louis acknowledge each other with a jerk of their chins, and then the behemoth hands Louis a mobile that he slides into his back pocket without looking at it.

"Thanks," Nick offers, before the chance gets away from him again. "I. Just thanks."

"Oh, don't go on about it," Louis says, but it lack his usual bite and might come with a hint of a smile before he turns away. When he moves towards the lifts, the giant bloke steps in behind him, and it's as if the Louis of the past few minutes has disappeared in a puff of smoke, magicked away, and Nick's left staring where he expected him to be. It isn't until they're into the lift that he reappears. He catches Nick looking, again, and he raises a hand in farewell. There's enough time for Nick to smile and Louis to return it before the doors slide shut.


End file.
